An old picture of our mayor, Tom Menino, is making the rounds now that Celtic Paul Pierce got in some trouble for throwing what might have been a gang sign at the Atlanta Hawks. (Next time, he should send the one-fingered salute. Everyone understands that gesture.) [Via Sports by Brooks] So, we gotta ask: Is the mayor flashing a gang sign? ( polls) For further clarification, read Chris Faraone's piece for the Dig that explains......

A survey revealed that 72 percent of Bostonians are largely happy with the way mayor Tom Menino has been running things. In fact, the Globe headline declared the city was "smitten," which is not a word Bostonist would use to describe how the city's residents view the mayor. Then again, he appears to be quite a hit with the ladies. Compared to what mayors in other cities get embroiled in (shoutout to SFist!), Mayor Menino......

--Thanks to the recession we're not in, teens will have fewer summer jobs. And bored teens sometimes become restless teens whom no one wants in their yards. [Boston Globe] --Mayor Menino testified before congress yesterday that there needs to be "common sense federal action" to keep illegal guns off the streets. [Boston Globe] --The game of chess between Governor Deval Patrick and House Speaker Sal DiMasi continues. DiMasi wants to cut the $213 million......

--Mayor Menino has a hotline, but there's no system to track the complaints. [Boston Globe] --Then again, do we really need to track messages such as one from February 4, 2008: "Would like the Mayor to know that he is "LOVING LIFE" this morning as he is a "DIE HARD GIANTS FAN"!!!!" [Boston Globe] --The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is scheduled to expand. [Boston Herald] --Local bloggers react to a New York Times trend......

Today's Globe featured a story on the tremendous pull that police and fire unions have on city government. Roderick Fraser Jr. heads the fire department, but Local 718 Ed Kelly has his own ideas for the direction of the fire department. Mayor Menino's disputes with the fire department, particularly over the issue of drug testing after the Tai Ho Restaurant fire, which killed firefighters Paul Cahill and Warren Payne, are notorious. It still isn't clear......

--Six people were injured in a Jeep rollover at Stuart and Charles Streets early this morning. It isn't clear exactly what caused the Jeep to roll over, but it landed wheels up. [WCVB] --The city is organizing meetings between homeowners and lenders so the owners can renegotiate their mortgages. Mayor Tom Menino and Senator John Kerry were there. [Boston Herald] --The U-Turn at the Allston-Brighton tolls is open if you have a Fast Lane or......

--Former Boston mayor Kevin White, who has since relocated to the warmer climate of Florida, injured himself in a fall and is now in stable condition. He is 78 years old. [Boston Herald] --Speaking of mayors, Mayor Tom Menino has one less contender in his next mayoral race. (Yes, he is elected. No, it is not a lifetime position.) [Boston Herald] --A fire at Spartan Brake and Muffler in West Springfield yesterday left two people......

If you want to get teenagers to stop doing something, the best plan of action is to tell them it's destructive and then prohibit them from doing it. That's only backfired... just about every time it's ever been tried. The recent test case involves Mayor Thomas Menino, who is attempting to make violent video games even more popular and desirable amongst kids by prohibiting their sale to minors. Violent crime is something that Boston......

--St. Patrick's Day, of course! Platinum Elite has wonderful photos and commentary from the parade. We were particularly enamored of the Elvis sighting. [Platinum Elite] --Other kudos to Pax Arcana's fond memories of the holiday. Bring the Pepto to the Purple Shamrock, folks! [Pax Arcana] --While it's cool that governor Deval Patrick is heading over to New York state to attend the swearing-in of the state's new governor, David Paterson, we're not quite sure......

Applications to the police academy will likely rise after the Globe reported today on the highest salaries from the city's payroll. Maybe Mayor Tom Menino, in his role as chief executive of the city government, can pull some strings and become a Boston police officer, who averaged $52,000 last year in overtime wages alone. Menino, at $175,000, was the 109th highest paid city employee last year, behind 107 police officers and one firefighter. Captain......

--Governor Deval Patrick is so lucky. He's in Miami right now. Meanwhile, the AP is wondering why he's leaving the state so much. [AP/Boston Herald] --Mayor Menino wants a greenway over Storrow Drive. Can't we just work on fixing what's broken? [Boston Globe] --An MBTA driver was trying to cut around traffic in Salem. However, the traffic was stopped because people were waiting for a couple with a baby carriage to cross. No one......

Well, City Councilor John Tobin has a solution for low voter turnout, and it's not a MoFee Style Public Kvetch-Fest. If Mayor Tom Menino thought he didn't like the idea of Kvetch-Fest 2008, he must have blown his stack when he heard what Councilor Tobin proposed. Tobin wants to limit mayoral and city council terms to 12 years. Menino, who is an institution along the lines of the Old South Meeting House, has already served......

There may be no institution in the city as diverse as the Boston Public Library, whose resources entice students, intellectuals, high culture types, the elderly, foreign language speakers, the homeless, and bookworms of all persuasions. Recently, though, the BPL has also been attracting some unwanted attention from Mayor Tom Menino. Menino's administration has taken greater control over how the BPL uses money that has been donated to it by benefactors. According to the Globe, the......

Despite costing us the Super Bowl, Boston is Mayor Tom Menino's city to lose. Given relative peace and prosperity, and the incredible challenge of defeating an incumbent, Menino will likely decide when and how his tenure as mayor comes to an end. Still, a rival politician can dream. The Globe today details three people who are weighing a run for mayor in 2009: --City Councilor at Large Michael Flaherty, 38, who's been having low-key......

--Old hotness: Late trains on the Worcester-Framingham line. New hotness: Changing the timetables so they don't look late anymore. [WBZ] --House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi has offered up a budget with a sizable tax cut for corporations that would drop the percentage from 9.5 percent to 7 percent. Let's see--the state is in a budget crunch, so he wants a tax cut? The budget also didn't include casino licenses, which sets up another Battle Royale......

Massachusetts' legendary senior Senator and national liberal icon, Ted Kennedy. Massachusetts' junior Senator and the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Massachusetts' precedent-shattering Governor, Deval Patrick. None of the endorsements were enough for Barack Obama to win the Massachusetts primary. While we gave a lot of attention yesterday to Senator Obama's epic Boston rally, Seth Gitell was reminding people that--press attention and celebrity status aside--the two strongest political machines in the state belong to Boston's......

The mayors of Boston and New York City, Mayors Menino and Bloomberg, are engaging in the standard "friendly wager" based on the outcome of the Super Bowl. If you compare the two lists, it's pretty clear which city has the better food options, and we're not talking about the Big Apple here: --100 cups of New England Clam Chowder from Legal Sea Foods; --42 pounds of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts in honor of Super......

Super Bowl Media Day is the professional football equivalent of the annual family reunion. A bunch of people get together, often traveling long distances, for the purpose of catching up. There's little that they have in common, but since they sort of fall under the same name, everyone has to make nice. The hijinks on display makes for a hilarious time for those not directly involved. People make nice and dumb down the stories of......

You heard that right--"on our lawn" as opposed to "off our lawn." We're serious! Turns out that Boston--Boston, home of constant tension between college students and permanent residents--is one of the best 100 communities in the United States for children and young people. America's Promise Alliance spotlights the "best places for young people to live and grow up." Mayor Menino is already touting the development in a press release. Some of the city's programs that......

--A massive fire that started in an abandoned nightclub and eventually destroyed 14 buildings in downtown Lawrence broke into the national news. In a miracle given the size of the fire, no one was hurt. However, 30 families were displaced. Authorities think the fire is suspicious. The owner, who was in the process of turning the spot into a restaurant, says he has no insurance and that someone "jealous of his success" started it.......

Last year, at his annual State of the City address, Mayor Thomas Menino sought to prove the thesis of the recently released Nas album entitled "Hip Hop is Dead" by declaring that the rap community had given him the name "T-Mizzy." He might need some credibility and political capital with minority Bostonians after unveiling at last night's speech that he wants to save on school transportation costs by dismantling part of the city's busing......

Mayor Thomas Menino will deliver his State of the City address tonight at the Strand Theater in Dorchester. However, the spotlight won't be solely on him--the Firefighters' Union has declared they will protest the event. Firefighters have been working without a contract, and they are arguing with the mayor over whether or not to have random drug and alcohol testing. The dispute arose after two firefighters died in the Tai Ho restaurant fire, and toxicology......

Political junkies have divided the last few months between obsessing over Iowa and New Hampshire and complaining about how much energy is wasted obsessing over Iowa and New Hampshire. Those states, the argument goes, are too white and too small and too rural to represent the country at large. But, while true, it always seems dismissive and elitist (possibly because we're writing this on a iPhone while stopped at a light in a Prius Zipcar.)......

--At least Mother Nature was kind enough to warn us of the impending weather torture with thunder. The Globe kindly reminds you not to drive like a dumbass. [Boston Globe] --Another milemarker in the ongoing battle between the mayor and the Firefighters Union: The union is considering picketing Menino's State of the City speech. [Boston Globe] --Potholes here, potholes there, potholes everywhere! [Boston Herald] --In Freetown, a trucker was killed when a pile of......

The Herald's front page gives a starring role to Mayor Menino's opposition to new state regulations allowing for in-store medical clinics at CVS locations (a change Bostonist outlined yesterday.) The Herald piece quotes a letter from Menino opining, "Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong." Right or wrong, CVS has been making money off of sick people for as long as it's been functioning as a pharmacy. But despite the state......

City Councilor President Maureen Feeney ("MoFee") has suggested hosting a gigantic town meeting at the South Boston Convention Center in the spring, the Globe reports. The mayor is not feeling the idea because of the teeming hordes that are likely to descend up on the convention center to speak their minds and he has to listen to kvetching all the time, anyway. But the mere presence of teeming hordes is the point. All too......

The Mayor's Office announced today that there are more homeless families in Boston. Mayor Thomas Menino and company held their annual Homeless Census and got the bad news. The number of homeless families shot up by 22%, from 2,535 to 3,084 this year.* This rise is alarming. The press office notes, "The number for families is higher for the third year in a row, meaning that children continue to be our fastest growing homeless population."......

The space-saver war continues. Yesterday, Donovan Slack followed up on the city's attempts to get a few residents of South Boston to stop saving parking spaces after a snowstorm, even though they can keep the space for 48 hours. Apparently a few protesters feel that tradition trumps the law: But sending a special crew to South Boston angered some in the neighborhood. They interpreted the move as another offensive in the years-long battle between City......

--Just because you're a Harvard student doesn't mean you're smart. The Crimson reports that a junior was arrested for "hitting and kicking a police officer and breaking the window of a patrol car." What could have irritated him so much? His friends said that he was "intoxicated at the time." That's an understatement. --Anarchist wannabes have been torching a few American flags in Western Mass, police say. On Friday night, a large flag hanging in......

--Handheld red laser beams can be a lot of fun, but a guy from Medford with a laser beam caused a ruckus on Saturday night when he pointed his beam at a State Police helicopter. The State Police swiftly summoned themselves, the Coast Guard, the Medford Police Department, and the Somerville Police Department to find the person. The feds are investigating. --The man who is accused of being the "Green Line Groper" has pled not......